time may give you more
by FinnFiona
Summary: Caroline always thought she knew where her life was headed. Turns out knowing doesn't get you very far. Conversations between Damon and Caroline, on the long road... a story of begrudging though no less essential friendship, with D/E, S/C, K/C, T/C. Vaguely post-S4 / mid-hypothetical S5.
1. the less I give back

**Author's Note:** Howdy, all. I've had a version of this story churning around for ages, but only now have found time to write it. Something of an unofficial companion piece to Manifestations of Discontent, but you definitely don't need to read that to get this.

You do, however, need to have seen the conclusion to Season 4. So SPOILERS, okay? (I don't know much about Season 5, however, so this is almost entirely speculation and maybe a little bit of wishful thinking. Though not too much, because then this would consist of nothing more than Alaric back in our lives. Forever.)

This will be the first of seven or eight chapters, and I should be able to post fairly regularly.

Thanks for indulging me in this. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

_**1: the less I give back**_

_You'd like to say you saw this coming. The abrupt and inevitable ending of everything you were counting on. _

_That perfectly planned life you'd picked out for yourself at the age of ten should have been wrenched away from you the moment Katherine Pierce pressed a pillow to your face. But you held onto it, that life. Or parts of it anyway. _

_It's only now that you realize how naive it was to think you could just make the remaining pieces of your existence fit that impossible picture. _

_That life – it was a little girl's dream, not yours. _

_But you're optimistic even when it's past the point of sense, and you didn't see this coming, anyhow. Or didn't want to. And your ability to see the positive, to will the positive into being – it's deserted you, too._

I came back for you, didn't I?

_You scoff, half a sob. _You_ come back. Again and again and again._

_Who really comes back for you?_

* * *

The roads fly by underneath the unforgiving glare of her headlights, but Caroline hardly notices where she's going.

_Who are you talking to?_

_No one, I—_

_Were you talking to her? _

It's getting harder to see, and Caroline knows it's the unshed tears in her eyes as much as the penetrating darkness of the night. She wipes a tear away angrily. She really should have seen this coming.

How could she not see this coming?

She doesn't have an answer, no matter how many times she asks the question.

_It's nothing, she's just—_

_She's what? She's what, Tyler? I'm starting to think she was more than just your 'friend on the run.' _

_She was there for me._

_She was 'there for you'? What does that even mean?_

_Does it matter? I'm here now, Care... I'm not—_

_Does it matter? Of course it matters! You might be here now, but you were _with_ her, weren't you? You were with her, Tyler. Maybe you still are._

Caroline blinks at the oncoming truck, barely swerving in time to avoid a collision. She hiccoughs back a shaky breath, trying to pay attention to the road – to anything, really – but her mind is racing through the past, not the present.

And yet... Why expect Tyler to come back unchanged, like nothing had ever happened? She'd changed, after all. Even if she didn't want to admit it.

_I told you to forget about me, I—_

_Well I didn't, okay? I couldn't just—I couldn't forget you._

_Caroline…_

_No, okay? _No_. I couldn't forget, Tyler, but I guess it was easier for you._

_She's not you, Caroline. I came back for you, didn't I?_

She thinks it might've been easier if there had been any signs. Supposes having a relationship with a voicemail recording, with the _idea_ of someone – someone stuck in time, just like you left them – well, that's not really a relationship at all.

But Tyler had come back, and at first, it really was like he never left. Until tonight, when it wasn't.

She had believed him. Believed _in_ him.

In them.

She believed him when he said Lila was just a friend. Believed him, standing in his arms, looking in his eyes when he said he loved _her_ – missed her, needed her.

How could she have been so stupid? So blind?

But then, it wouldn't be the first time she believed what she wanted to believe. Saw what she wanted to see.

_How can you even say that? This whole time, all I could think about was you – about where you were, how you were – how I could get you back to me. And you were with someone else. _

_Oh, yea? You weren't sparing a thought for _anyone_ else? _

_What are you talking—_

_I see the way he looks at you, Caroline. I see what he's done for you. I wouldn't be here if—_

_This has _nothing_ to do with _Klaus_._

It would be easier, too, if she believed that, but there was a reason why it stung. Still, she'd been faithful to Tyler.

Only, he hadn't thought there was anything to be faithful to.

Caroline pulls up the drive as if on autopilot, and hell, maybe she is. Though she's not sure when the Boarding House became her go-to in a crisis.

She glances up to a light in the uppermost window, tucked into the eaves. A soft sigh of relief eases the tension in her shoulders somewhat.

Well, maybe she does know why she comes here, even if she doesn't know when it started.

She tries to still the quaking in her chest as she walks up to the door – attempts to school her expression into neutral when Damon opens it before she can reach for the handle.

He gets one look at her, though, and she knows that she failed. She's sure this would irritate her more if she could spare a thought for it. If she could compose a thought that wasn't reliving the past few hours at all.

"I was looking for—" she stops, clears her throat when her voice scratches. "Is—"

"Caroline?" Elena comes up behind Damon, concern marring her features. _Of course_, Elena is there – she and Jeremy both, actually – and Caroline is almost ashamed that, especially after they've lost Bonnie, it wasn't her remaining best friend that some unconscious force drove her to see tonight.

Elena's arm slips easily around Damon's waist with a practiced familiarity as she stops at the door. Caroline flinches at the gesture – and if most days her reaction would stem from some stubborn aversion to the sight, today it's simply due to the too-fresh reminder of what she's just lost.

Her expression must register as something less critical and more like the pang of regret that it is, as Elena's brow furrows deeper. "Caroline?" she repeats. "Are you okay? It's almost two in the morning."

_Are you okay?_

_Of course I'm not okay. _

_Caroline… I wish you'd let—_

Don't_. Don't touch me, don't explain, don't… don't come back._

"Oh, Caroline…" Elena reaches for her, pulls her into the house as Caroline bites her lip, shakes her head no. No, she's not okay.

Caroline sees Elena shoot a worried glance at Damon, but he's not looking at his girlfriend, or whatever they are to one another. No, Caroline can still feel his eyes on _her_, shrewd gaze appraising her silently. She finds herself staring back as Elena fusses her into the library. Damon just raises an eyebrow, pressing a bottle of bourbon Caroline hadn't noticed he was carrying into her hands before retreating from the room.

A few slow pulls of the strong liquid burning her lungs and Caroline feels as though she's come back to herself, if only a bit.

She starts talking, startled at how hard it is, at first. But she does start, and soon it's all flooding out of her like so many rivers overflowing their banks. The sudden and assured suspicion, the ugly fight, the doubts, the hurt, the uncertainty of what comes next. It's a torrent she can't see her way out of.

Elena nods, says all the right things, places a soothing hand on her back when she can no longer hold the tears at bay. But by the time Caroline has run out of words and Elena has fallen asleep against the arm of the couch, Caroline realizes all she wants in that moment is a pair of strong arms around her, making her feel safe. Cared for.

She knows it shouldn't matter so much, but it does, and she feels adrift without them.

Where she'll find that feeling now, though, she doesn't know.

_I never thought you could hurt me like this. Not like this..._

The first tendrils of dawn are slipping through the curtains when she's pulled from her circling, hopeless wants by the faint sounds of Damon slipping back into the room, pausing to pull the drapes closed against those errant slivers of light.

Caroline pretends to be asleep, even though the thoughts racing an endless loop inside her tired mind would never allow it. It's quiet for so long that she risks cracking an eye open – only to find Damon a scant few feet away, gently covering Elena's sleeping form with a blanket, lightly brushing the hair from her brow.

The intimacy of the moment takes Caroline by surprise, and she squeezes her eyes shut against the ghosts of fingers in her own sun-bright tresses. A soft touch she isn't likely to feel quite the same way ever again.

"I know you're still awake, Barbie," Damon's voice drifts down from above her after a few moments, and despite the epithet, his tone isn't unkind. "And so is Stefan. Upstairs. If you still want to see him."

Caroline refuses to open her eyes until his footsteps have faded from the room. She rolls onto her back, stares at the ceiling for a moment, not wanting to give Damon the satisfaction of being right.

The defiance is fleeting, but it almost makes her laugh with its comforting familiarity, its not being the crushing grief and anger that have been chasing her like twin demons for hours.

But then they're back, those demons – her very own personal demons – and the abandoned, hysterical mirth is now a lump in her throat. It's enough to push her upright, breathing shaky.

She swings her feet to the cold wood floor, tries to inject a sense of calm that won't quite come.

Her gaze travels the room with a final glance at her sleeping friend, the empty bottle of liquor, the ceiling. Trusting a path she'd chosen as soon as she'd stepped in her car the night before, she walks upstairs.


	2. listen, and hear me

**Author's Note: **Thanks for the support so far, and for coming back for round two! I feel I should explain that while there is an underlying plot to this, we're focusing more on character moments than every detail of story development. Hopefully the necessities will still be clear. And more importantly, hopefully you'll enjoy seeing that plot unfold a bit unconventionally, around these conversations between Caroline and Damon.

Okay. Ready?

* * *

**2: listen, and hear me**

_You let him run his hands down your bare skin, exploring. Arching your back into the touch, you remember what a hundred plus years of experience can feel like. _

_You wonder why you wasted so much time talking when a single fingertip to a fluttering pulsepoint could feel this good. Wonder why you spent so many nights here, in this very room, letting the space between you fill up with Tyler and Elena and Klaus and Damon and just about anyone and anything else. _

_Stupid, when finally closing that distance is the most natural thing you've done in months._

_He knows what you want before you even have a chance to ask. Reduces you to running trembling fingers through his hair, tracing his tattoos with your tongue, trying not to lose contact._

_It very nearly hurts, down deep in your bones, when he finally pulls away._

* * *

"You're getting really good at that, you know," Caroline smiles sleepily as she wakes to find Stefan casually taking a sip from the ever-present blood bag on his bedside table.

He seems startled to find her awake, but recovers quickly, returning her smile as he deftly closes the old tome he'd been reading. "I guess I have a pretty good sober coach," he teases lightly. She loves that indulgent grin – has seen it grace his features more and more frequently these past few weeks. Thinks maybe she brings it out in him, never having seen it before.

"And I'm so proud of my prize pupil," she brushes her thumb over his chin, feeling the sentiment more than the flippancy of her remark might imply. Truth be told, Stefan hasn't seemed troubled around human blood for awhile now. Damon even made a crack about the sudden influx of squirrels in the yard.

Still smiling, Caroline reaches past Stefan to take some of the crimson liquid for herself, grimacing a little as it hits her tongue. Vampire or not, the metallic tang has never been her favorite taste first thing in the morning.

"How about some real breakfast?" she asks, already extricating herself from the sheets.

Stefan just shakes his head in amusement. "I'm going to be making you pancakes for the rest of eternity, aren't I?"

"I hope not," Caroline kids in mock horror, even as her stomach does a little flip at the mention of eternity with someone – _this_ someone – at her side, "your pancakes are as dense as lead." She leans in close as she pulls on one of his shirts, "I thought you were supposed to be a good cook."

He does laugh this time, soft and deep in his chest, and Caroline thinks she'll never get tired of that sound either, even if it's saved just for her. Maybe especially if it's saved just for her.

"I guess breakfast was never exactly my specialty," he allows as she plants a kiss at the corner of his mouth and heads to the door. "Was always Damon's forte," he shrugs, reopening his book. "Probably why Elena always has him bringing up a tray of bacon and eggs."

Caroline frowns, but Stefan misses her expression, already engrossed in whatever he's reading. "They could just as easily eat downstairs…" she offers, as if location – so long as it's still within the proximity window of this house – were really the issue. They all live here, but she doesn't want him to start every morning reminded of something that causes him pain.

But Stefan just shrugs, clearly distracted. "They seem happy. Let them eat breakfast in bed if they want."

Caroline's frown deepens, but she's ever so slowly learning when not to push the issue, and now – when Stefan is evidently intent on protecting himself behind practiced nonchalance – may be one of those times. She doesn't see how he could possibly be _over _it – Damon and Elena together. Not entirely. Hell, she sees Matt simply flirt with the hostess at The Grill and she still feels a little pang of _something. _

She's certain underneath that self-preserving barrier he's hurting, and thinks he'll have to talk about it eventually. And yet that mask is getting so good that even Caroline is starting to have a hard time distinguishing true ambivalence from Stefan's façade and the sadness that _must_ lie behind it.

But she keeps her concerns to herself for now, not least because she isn't sure who she can share them with, if not Stefan himself. Age old irony of ironies.

Instead, she makes her way downstairs, enjoying the look of the house bathed in dusty, pre-dawn light.

She's spent enough time here by now that she should expect to find Damon has already beaten her to the kitchen, even at barely five in the morning – the guy seems to need even less sleep than she does, and she's _perfected_ the sleep to active time ratio – but he catches her off-guard all the same. Maybe it's the effect of her now regrettable decision to walk around wearing a big button-down shirt and little else.

Damon glances in her direction, admirably keeping his eyes off her mostly bare legs, before wordlessly going back to what he was doing – which apparently was tackling the giant pile of dishes in the sink.

Caroline never thought she'd meet her match in the neat-freak department, either, but Damon Salvatore has her by a mile. And considering how much has gone down in this place – not to mention its general enormity – she is, in spite of herself, developing a begrudging respect for the typically spotless condition of the Boarding House.

Feeling magnanimous and determined not to be embarrassed by her current state of undress, Caroline picks up a towel and takes the next plate Damon intends to set on the counter. He raises an eyebrow in lieu of a thank you. Caroline settles for rolling her eyes right back and starts drying.

"When I was his age, if I was as much of a slob as the littlest Gilbert apparently _lives_ to be, my father would have whipped me senseless," Damon grumbles as he scrapes a casserole clean.

"Don't you think cleaning up after him just reinforces the bad behavior, then?" Caroline points out, smiling winsomely when Damon just glares at her.

"Oh, he'll be hearing from me later."

"Uh huh," Caroline bites back a laugh at that. Damon seems to take cleanliness more seriously than if Jeremy had left out a loaded crossbow. Tipped with werewolf venom. "You know, we could be doing this a bit faster."

Damon shrugs. "Some things are worth doing the old-fashioned way."

"What, like breakfast in bed?" Caroline asks pointedly before she can stop herself.

Damon doesn't seem to follow her train of thought, and really, why would he? As soon as she says it out loud, she hears how thin it is. Elena and Damon have been caught in many more blatantly charged or even occasionally saccharine moments. No wonder Stefan was so nonplussed by a breakfast tray.

Except... it still itches at her. When had he stopped flinching at so much as a stray touch between his brother and his ex-girlfriend?

Still, Caroline internally berates herself for jumping five stations ahead – and for ruining a perfectly peaceable moment. After all, Stefan seems to want his brother in his life and Caroline has already lost one best friend, she thinks she can stand to make a little more of an effort.

But if the train has already left the station… "You and Elena could cut back a little on the PDA, is all I'm saying."

Caroline thinks she sees a flicker of something like regret in Damon's eyes, but it's gone before she can blink. If nothing else, he seems to have cottoned onto her point, now. "Stefan didn't seem that bothered by it," he goes back to the last bowl in the sink, though not before staring a moment out the misted window.

"Yea, well, he's good at hiding it," Caroline counters mulishly, even as she knows she might be lying. Drying the last bowl as Damon hands it to her, she sets it down on the impressive stack of dishes and starts to turn away, real breakfast forgotten.

"Does he seem different to you?" Damon asks from behind her.

Caroline turns. He hasn't turned off the water in the sink. "What?" she asks, ignoring the hairs sticking up at the back of her neck.

"Stefan," and the lack of a long-suffering sigh clues Caroline into how serious he is. "Does he seem different to you, lately?"

"What," Caroline crosses her arms defensively, "like, happy?"

Now Damon does sigh, shutting off the tap and picking up the dry stack of plates. "Don't pat yourself on the back too soon, Blondie," he starts to put the dishes away, "if I know my brother, the next epic moping session is right around the corner."

"What do you mean, pat myself on the back?"

Damon just shoots a look over his shoulder. Sometimes that smirk can be so damn infuriating, Caroline could smack it off him.

She settles for pulling the oversized Oxford shirt as low as she can over her thighs.

"Don't think I don't know how you're spending so much of your time here, lately," Damon turns back to her, mirroring her posture with his arms folded across his chest. "I know from sneaking around, and you kinda suck at it."

"No one's trying to 'sneak around,'" Caroline tosses her hair over her shoulders.

Except that maybe once the late-night conversations had turned into something more, she'd found herself tiptoeing out to her car before the sun came up on a few occasions. Even if Elena had given her blessing for whatever it was Caroline found growing between herself and Stefan, she wasn't about to rub it in her friend's face. Losing Bonnie and everything else might have forced them to agree that they have bigger things to worry about, but there's a big gap between falling asleep and sleeping over, and once she'd crossed that chasm a few nights ago...

Well, it's new, and at any moment Caroline is lost between elation and spiraling. Some days she hardly knows what she's doing and so she doesn't want a whole house full of people knowing her business, so what?

"Yea, okay," Damon smirks again, skeptical.

"We're not sneaking around," she repeats, moves to leave. Some things were special, better held close, that was all.

"Caroline," Damon calls out when she's almost to the threshold. She turns back, face a well-worn mask of haughty expectance. He sighs, leaning forward against the counter. "Just be careful."

Something in his expression makes her nod before turning back to the living room and the stairs. She hardly expects to find Stefan making his way down them two at a time, clad in jeans and his leather jacket.

"Where are you going?" she blurts out as he hits the bottom landing.

Seemingly as distracted as he'd been upstairs, Stefan meets her eyes with a jolt. There's a strange pause before he replies, "Oh, your mom just called. She thinks she has something on that string of grave-robbings."

"Oh," Caroline mentally pinches herself, his answer as easy as ever. "Want me to go with you? I can—"

"No, no," he cuts her off. "It's fine, I won't be long. Go get a little extra rest. And save me a few of those pancakes," he adds with a smile, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Damon's up," she persists, an odd feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. "I'll just go tell him and he can go with you," she starts to move back toward the kitchen.

"No," Stefan says again, a bit more forcefully than before, "really, I can handle it." He smiles again, but it fails to reach his eyes.

"Okay," she says – doesn't know what else _to_ say. But Stefan only nods and closes the door resolutely behind him.

She hears the engine of his motorcycle rev up a second before she hears footsteps at her back. She turns to find Damon leaning against the archway.

"What?" Caroline folds her arms, not sure why she feels so defiant.

Damon holds out his phone to her. "I just got a text from Liz twenty minutes ago," he explains as she takes the device. "Her deputies were out all night, didn't find a thing."

Caroline looks at the text for a long moment, glances back at the closed door. She hands the phone back to Damon, meeting his eyes. He raises an eyebrow pointedly, as if daring her to pretend like she doesn't know he's thinking of his question from moments ago. Like she doesn't know why her gut is suddenly churning – why her mind is starting to replay every glossed-over idiosyncrasy of the last four weeks. Or maybe even longer.

She can only drop her hands to her sides, swallowing hard.

"Go get dressed," Damon says firmly, straightening. "I'll pull the car around."

Caroline nods, the fabric of the shirt suddenly chafing against her wrists, her neck. She pulls it off even as she closes the bedroom door, trying to breathe.


	3. should be used to the cold

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone sharing your feedback so far. I hope you'll continue to leave reviews and favorites, and share this story with your friends. Your encouragement really keeps me going!

* * *

**3: should be used to the cold**

_Elena won't let go of your hand. _

_Just as well. You can barely feel it past the numbness that pervades every last cell of your body and fogs your mind. _

_It started creeping in when you and Damon began to put two and two together. Got worse when Silas revealed himself, no further need for subterfuge. _

_It hasn't gone away. _

_Tyler is there, too, shooting furtive glances every so often in your direction across the old Fell crypt. You refuse to meet his gaze. Sad blue eyes do find yours in the candlelit gloom, though, and Matt looks like if you don't break, he might just crumble for you. _

_You wonder how this cold stone room filled up with all of the men in your life, while it's the one who isn't here that looms largest. _

_You want to focus on finding Stefan, you do. But that would mean acknowledging he's been gone. He's been gone, and that aching in your chest isn't just missing Stefan, it's missing what you thought you had with him – what you had instead with an imposter._

_You don't want to think about how long your heart was wrapped up in that ugly lie. _

_So you don't. You try to listen as Damon talks through the plan with a reluctant Katherine, with Lucy and her beleaguered coven, too. _

_Damon, he's… He's so calm, you think it should be comforting, but it's off, somehow. He's coiled like a whip right before the resounding crack, and you belatedly realize that he isn't calm at all – he's livid. _

_Elena squeezes your fingers tightly, grounding you for a moment. Maybe she's grounding herself, too. Holding your hand because Damon won't – can't – let her hold his. _

_And that's when you see it. Damon isn't just angry, he's scared._

_That thought may chill you most of all._

* * *

"You're telling me he's here," Damon pauses, disbelieving. "Stefan is _in_ the quarry. Yes I know tracking spells are called that for a reason." Another pause. "Can you tell me _where_, exactly?"

Caroline looks out over the vast expanse, trying not to think about what Stefan being lost somewhere in that murky water might mean.

"_Witches_," Damon mutters irritably under his breath as he ends the call, obviously not having received the answer he wanted.

"What do we do now?" Caroline asks, hardly recognizing her own voice as it's carried off in the howling wind. But Damon is already kicking off his boots and handing her his jacket.

"Meet me down there," he points to the rocky shore below, and dives off the cliff without further ceremony.

Caroline rushes to the crest, a surge of panic momentarily burbling in her chest when he doesn't immediately rise to the surface like any human would.

But Damon isn't human, of course. And neither is she.

Caroline speeds to the water's edge as fast as she can in the gathering twilight, and waits. It's probably only a few minutes, but it feels like an eternity compared to the breakneck speed of the past thirty-six hours when she's hardly sat down, much less eaten or slept.

Because once they realized Silas was back – or had never really left – there wasn't time to stop. Can't hide anything from Silas, after all. Just try to stay out of his way and one step ahead.

So now there's a semblance of a plan, even if Caroline doesn't put much hope in it succeeding.

It feels strange, to have so little faith.

But if this is going south, well, she needs to see Stefan – the real Stefan – one more time. She doesn't care if they'll never have what she spent the last month living. Doesn't care if the feelings that drive her are at least partially built on something that was never real.

At the end of the day, she _needs_ him to be okay. Or she's afraid that she never can be.

There has to be something real about that.

And besides, once they'd determined that Stefan actually _was_ still alive to find, she wasn't about to let him suffer through whatever hell Silas had trapped him in.

For once, she and Damon had agreed on something. Their friends could set everything else in motion. They needed to do this first.

As if on cue, Damon bursts from the surface of the water, and it takes Caroline a moment to see that he's dragging something with him.

No, not something. Someone.

Stefan.

Damon's features are all grim lines as he hauls his brother's desiccated body above the waterline. "Bastard had him in our _safe_," he grinds out, though if he even knows Caroline is still there, he doesn't show it.

Caroline feels a gasp die in her throat as Damon leans back and she catches sight of Stefan's ashen face, frozen in a twisted mask of horror and pain.

"Come on, Stefan," a hint of desperation creeping into the elder Salvatore's voice. "Damn it," he breathes, "blood's in the car… Caroline," he calls, gesturing in her direction, not that his eyes ever leave Stefan's too-still form.

Caroline feels herself inch forward, though how her legs know to move is beyond her.

"_Caroline_," Damon says again, sharper, louder. He finally looks up at her, the icy fire in his eyes enough to cut through her shock, if barely. "Blood," he adds pointedly, looking at her wrist.

"What?" her eyes widen. "But I'm not—"

"Caroline," Damon speaks again, marginally softer, almost a plea. He looks smaller, soaked to the bone and kneeling next to his baby brother. "I'm taking vervain. Go get the blood in the car or give me your wrist."

Caroline finally nods, unable to leave for the bloodbags any more than Damon is, and unwilling to leave Stefan in this state any longer than she has to. Crouching next to them, she nips roughly into her vein. Lets the dark liquid flow onto Stefan's cold, gray lips, trying to push away a memory of lips so like these mapping the contours of her shoulder, her jaw, her neck.

Not these lips. Not by a long shot.

The color starts to come back to Stefan's skin a split-second before he latches onto Caroline's wrist. It's so fast and so much that Caroline starts to feel faint before Damon can pull her arm away, one hand on Stefan's chest.

"Stefan, hey," he tries to sound steady, almost gets away with it until Stefan's eyes fly open and he sits up with a rattling breath.

"Slow down," Damon is saying, gripping his brother's shoulders with white knuckles.

Caroline can't look away, arrested by the haunted look in Stefan's eyes. They're darting everywhere but her or Damon, his breathing coming in short, shallow gasps.

"How long?" he finally manages to ask, his voice like gravel and glass.

"At least a month, probably more," Damon doesn't sugarcoat it. All Caroline wants to say is _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I should have known, so sorry._ But she can't even move.

"I need to get out of here," Stefan vaults suddenly and unsteadily to his feet, a heady mix of vampire speed and untested muscles.

Damon catches him, not bothering to hide his concern or confusion. "What are you talking about?"

But Stefan isn't really listening to him, backing away shakily, tripping over the rocks at his ankles. "I was going to leave," he says, almost to himself, as though he doesn't know what he's saying but can't keep it in, either. "I was going to get out of here... Need to get out of here."

The thought of Stefan leaving finally jolts something through Caroline. He will not leave. She won't let him. Can't.

He _can't_.

"Stefan," she says softly, approaching him warily, "you're not making any sense."

He pulls away when her fingers graze his arm, flinching violently as though she'd burned him.

"Brother," Damon leans forward, intent, "you don't have to do anything you'll regret."

Stefan's eyes snap into focus for a minute, locking in on Damon, manic but present. Caroline can't have those eyes – those tortured and petrified eyes – bore into her like that.

"I told you I'd help you stay away from the edge," Damon continues, seeing he has Stefan's attention. "You don't have to do this. You don't have to be _him _– the Ripper."

Caroline watches Stefan's face register, absently wonders why she thought she had the corner on walking Stefan through the dark nights. But then she sees his features crumple, and it doesn't really matter.

"You think—" Stefan's voice hitches, breaks over into a mirthless laugh seeped through with hysteria. In her peripheral vision, Caroline can see Damon recoil slightly, but she can't take her eyes off of Stefan. "I don't need blood, Damon, I need _peace_," Stefan whispers, words carrying eerily in the growing darkness. "I have been drowning over and over and _over_ again until my lungs couldn't heal anymore, just froze up, and all I had was my own delirious thoughts for company," his voice grows stronger, but crashes anew over every word as they come tumbling out of him. "You know what it's like to slowly feel your body give out on you, but the mind – the _mind _never lets you go."

"It's over now." Caroline has to give Damon credit for even forming words.

"No," Stefan's jaw sets and he backs away like a caged animal. A surer step this time, but it's survival, not calm. "No, it's not over," his throat constricts. "It's not over because I can still hear that _voice_ in my head. That voice – _my voice_ – recounting every mistake, every misdeed, every horrible thing I've ever done."

"Stefan..." Caroline reaches for him again. The look he gives her – _finally _gives her – stops her in her tracks. Hurts her more than the burning sting of a backhand across the cheek.

"It was your voice sometimes, too, Caroline," he says softly. "And yours," he turns back to his brother. "And our _mother's voice_, Damon. Our mother, telling me I didn't deserve to wake up."

The anguish in every syllable roots Caroline to the spot as Stefan slips further away.

"I'm sorry, I... I can't be here anymore."

He's gone into the gathering gloom before she or Damon can say anything else. Distantly, Caroline thinks she should be following him, chasing him to the ends of the earth and back until he listens to reason.

Distantly.

"C'mon," Damon has a hand at her elbow, "we have to stick to the plan."

She'd protest more, but the look in Damon's eyes brooks no argument. If she felt capable of making one, that is.

Still, she locks her shell-shocked gaze onto his, tries to get him to understand what they need to do, make the moves for them. Screw the plan, screw Silas and whatever fresh disaster he has in store for them. But even as she sees Damon's eyes trace Stefan's path one last time, she knows they aren't going after him. Not tonight, anyway.

"Let's go buy him some time," Damon says instead. She acquiesces, lets him walk her back to the car, wondering what good she'll be to them – to Stefan – if she can't even move her own two feet. Wonders what she can do if she can't think of anything, can't see _anything_ but Stefan's eyes pleading with her to make him whole.


	4. without, I finally

**Author's Note: **Thanks again for the continued support. Please continue to leave your feedback - reviews and favorites make an author's day, I can tell you!

* * *

**4: without, I finally**

_Your whole body aches, eyelids like sandpaper as you force them open, fluttering against the filtered sunlight. Don't know where you are, but you think it must be bad if it's Damon Salvatore sitting vigil at your bedside._

_Lips crack as you try to ask all of your questions at once. He responds with a hushed noise deep in his throat, at odds with his usual sharp edges and smirks – though no more incongruous than the gentle hand tilting your head forward to a waiting glass._

_The water is quickly replaced by another, more welcome liquid. _

_"Thank you," you manage, voice creaking dangerously past the last, sweet swallow of blood, your head sinking back onto a pillow. _

_Damon just nods, part of him somewhere else far away from you, even as his eyes bore into yours with what may just be genuine concern. _

_Your features might register the shock if you could only think straight. _

_But then, you saw his face when Alaric was back. Just a few hours, really – what was it, months ago now? – but the pain lingered past the fleeting joy, and it's that same unguarded, deep schism that registers now. _

_Hell, you saw his face when he pulled Stefan out of that watery coffin, too. So maybe there's more in him than you'd like to credit. _

_You're all capable of more than expected, aren't you? _

_Funny that's just now sinking in. _

_"Try to sleep," he says, and you nod, a dizzy bleariness taxing your senses. He slides back down the edge of the bed as you drift off, but you never see him leave, and for that you are grateful._

* * *

It's dark the next time Caroline wakes, but she knows instinctively that she's alone.

She valiantly tries to sit up, fighting the protesting waves of nausea that sweep over her. Head is clearer now, but the memories that come with that revelation make her wish she'd never woken.

How many days? Hours?

So few frenzied minutes, really, since every new truth she'd built for herself broke open again and swallowed her whole.

And she can remember now, see clearly the carnage they'd all endured to stop Silas, every last payment to the piper for their collective sins. Still, she hates that it's the personal hurts that sting the most in this moment of lonely clarity. The heartbreak of Caroline Forbes is the least of the world's problems, but it's _her _heartbreak, and it fills her up.

She can't help wondering, at these too frequent times, if she'll always make the same mistakes. If she'll keep falling for the wrong guy, keep misplacing her trust, keep ending up so very alone.

"Oh good," an all-business swagger worn like a shield precedes Damon into the room, "you're up."

Caroline squints into the fluorescent light from the hallway, reflexively catching the fresh towel and clothing Damon tosses her way.

"Get cleaned up," he busies himself around the nondescript hotel room, "we've got places to be."

The towel feels nice under bruised fingers, and Caroline won't question the new shirt and jeans when she realizes the tattered dress hanging off of her frame is still covered in blood. The sight sends a ripple of unease through her stomach.

"Did everybody make it?" she forces herself to ask, fearing the answer.

"The ones that matter, more or less," is Damon's harsh and noncommittal answer. It shouldn't be nearly enough, but Caroline recognizes it's all she can handle.

And yet, "why aren't we home?"

Damon finally looks at her, a frown creasing his forehead. "The witches say we can go back in a few days."

_The witches…_ A flash of memory slow to return hits her like a ten ton brick, a flash of Silas – Silas, who looked like Stefan – _was he ever Stefan? why couldn't it have been Stefan, that she..?_ – Stefan – no, Silas – Silas screaming, in agony in that clearing, just _screaming_ – and then—

"…be enough time," Damon is saying absently, fiddling with a bag she didn't notice before.

Caroline starts to really look around, then. "Where's Elena?"

The smallest twitch of the jaw. "Chasing after Jeremy."

_Jeremy…_ Jeremy who's chasing after an answer to his own guilt. Couldn't let Bonnie take his place, after all. _Bonnie, who…_

Caroline's fists clench, trying to physically stifle the thoughts threatening to overwhelm her as she futilely attempts to let the memories back in slowly. Ever so slowly.

"Don't you want to be with her?" And there's no accusation in Caroline's voice, no contempt as there once might have been – and even if she's too stubborn to acknowledge when that started to change, she's still asking why he's here, with her.

"Quarterback'll call me if anything goes sideways," he shrugs, nonchalance betrayed by the rigid set of his shoulders.

Caroline nods, though she's hardly sure if she understands. She knows the answer to this riddle of her scattered memory, she does. But even if the pieces weren't strewn about a battered mind, she'd still be hiding behind the protection of hazy recollections and willful ignorance.

Of course, Damon Salvatore has never let her hide from anything. She should've remembered that, at least.

"She has her little brother to save," he continues, turning away again, "and I have mine."

He's going after Stefan.

_She's _going after Stefan.

Stefan who… _Stefan_, who had the final ounce of peace drowned out of him a thousand times over. Who made good on a promise no one knew he'd made, and left.

He left, and too many people have died, and she's here.

"Come on Blondie, shower's that way," Damon is pointing, his voice impatient, but she thinks his eyes are understanding. She _thinks_.

She doesn't trust herself to _know_ anything, anymore.

And besides, how could he understand the things she can hardly admit to herself?

"Seriously, Caroline," he adds bitingly when she doesn't move to follow his instructions – and at least some things never change – though a solemn undercurrent cuts through the sarcasm. "I promised your mom I wouldn't let you die. It'd kind of defeat the purpose if I killed you."

It wasn't long ago that she would have simply snapped back at that second statement, but today, it's the first that's resonating.

Duty, she thinks. And consequences.

When she stands under the water a few minutes later, willing its scalding heat to wash her clean inside and out, she knows nothing, and she wonders if it's too late to learn. Wonders if she can stop thinking, just for a minute, and breathe. Wonders if she'll ever be able to forget the feeling of Silas' hands on her – how often she'll have to remind herself that it was _Silas'_ hands, and not Stefan's.

Because she knows it was all a lie, but those feelings – feelings for Stefan, she thought – they can't be turned off as easily as she now turns off the tap.

She stands on the cooling porcelain, biting her lip against the spring of tears to her eyes and the painful lump in her throat.

She doesn't want to let Damon hear her cry.

She stands poised with her hand on the dull door knob until she thinks she might at least look normal. Fears this might become a ritual. She doesn't bother to check the mirror.

With a deep breath, Caroline finally steps back into the room to find Damon sitting quietly at the small table, two glasses of bourbon placed just so in front of him. The image makes her feel that the opposite chair isn't just empty, but missing its occupant. Sitting heavily on the corner of the bed, she realizes on some level, it always will be.

"Do you miss him?" she ventures tentatively, feeling giving or possibly suicidal – or maybe just needing to know she isn't alone in her grief.

"Who?" Damon swirls the amber liquid in his glass, not looking at her.

"Alaric."

Damon _hmmms_ a non-answer with eyebrows slightly raised, downing his drink in one swallow. "This," he holds the second, untouched tumbler out towards her, "was meant for you."

She accepts the drink, breathing in the heady scent of it. She wishes she could escape back into a stupor where she doesn't remember anything about Stefan's haunted eyes or Silas' demise or Bonnie's lonely death or Tyler's betrayal or Klaus' godforsaken smirk or any of it.

"Your answer for everything is alcohol," she chides, but there's more appreciation behind it than reproach.

"If it ain't broke..." Damon shrugs, pouring himself another finger's worth.

Caroline sighs, eyes closing as the bourbon slides hot down her throat. She knows she needs to pull herself together, but if it hasn't been one thing, it's been another – and then another, and another... and she just can't get her footing, can't _think_ much less think _through_ anything with something resembling rationality.

So if she can't pull herself together, it seems she has no real choice but to let Damon Salvatore keep pulling her along. It wouldn't be her first choice, but it's a less horrifying prospect than she'd expected.

"So," she at least tries to sound like she wasn't fighting back tears mere moments ago, "Stefan?"

"Stefan," Damon agrees darkly. They tap their glasses together, and the sound rings loud in the silence.


	5. say it doesn't matter

**Author's Note:** Can't say thanks enough for all your feedback. Rewarding you guys (at least, hopefully it's a reward!) with an extra-long chapter. Enjoy, and keep letting me know you're reading – and what you think!

* * *

**5: say it doesn't matter**

_"What if Stefan doesn't want to go back to Mystic Falls?" _

_The night closing in on all sides of the car is dark as pitch, full of uncertainty, but Damon's voice answers you without hesitation. _

_"Then we won't go back." _

_You look at him, but his eyes are staring straight ahead, resolute. "Just like that?"_

_"Just like that."_

* * *

Forty-eight hours, and they're no closer to finding Stefan. Harder to track down a lost soul without the convenient blood trail it usually leaves behind.

Caroline is impressed with the sheer number of places Damon knows to look, and it never even occurs to her that they'd stop searching, but every stray thought gnaws away until what little self-assuredness and determination she has left is worn raw.

Because forty-eight hours and the highways have given over to dirt roads, and the silences that stretch between Caroline and Damon were never exactly companionable, and it's all making the questions eating at her that much harder to ignore. Questions about Silas, and Stefan, and maybe other things, deeper things. Older things.

She needs someone to talk to, and so help her, Damon is the only one there.

"Do you think people are drawn to darkness?" the question – _the _question – tumbles from Caroline's lips before she can tuck it away.

It sucks all the air out of the car, out of her own lungs.

She can feel Damon's eyes flick over to her, but some small part of her is hoping he'll pretend she never spoke.

She refuses to admit a larger part wants to hear his answer.

"Where do you get these ideas? Vampire Oprah?" he scoffs at last, driving on.

That could be the end of it – should be the end of it – but now the air is stifling and she truly does need to know.

Surely _someone_ must know just how screwed up she really is.

So she gives voice to the question she's really asking. "Do you think _I'm_ drawn to darkness?"

"Where is this coming from, Caroline?" Damon glances at her again, his tone a fraction less condescending. She's watching him closely now, searching for the unadulterated response that he hides too quickly.

It isn't there, and she swallows. Hard. "I thought he was _Stefan_, Damon," her voice is impossibly small, "I thought he was Stefan…"

"We all thought he was Stefan," Damon murmurs, almost to himself.

"Yea, but…" she starts, shudders, bites her lip. His touch still echoes, and his eyes... "But he wasn't. And he was different – he knew things, but he was different. And I still…"

She got drawn in, just like she always seems to do.

Why was it so easy?

Why does she keep falling from one failure to another – every future she imagines for herself crumbling before she can pick up the pieces? Was she so wrapped up in having love in her life that she would have believed anything?

Was she so afraid of being alone?

"Have you ever wanted something – _someone_ – so badly, it just had to be true?" Caroline asks aloud, when Damon maintains the near unbearable silence.

Damon just raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

Because, Katherine. Right.

"Didn't you develop..." Damon deigns to speak, and barely restrains the roll of his eyes, "_feelings_ for... _him_ because you already felt something for my mopey baby brother? I mean, he's no saint either, but..."

Caroline would like to say yes, but cause and effect, a sequence of feelings – nothing seems clear anymore. "I don't know... did I?"

"This is Silas we're talking about," Damon counters, not unkindly, "he was manipulating you. All of us..."

"It was more than that." Caroline doesn't know why she's arguing with him except that it makes more sense than continuing to argue with herself. And she can't stop now, can't stop until it's all spilled out on the floor in front of her. "I _do_ this," she can't keep her hands still, "I get swept up, I—" her breath catches, fingers to her lips.

"Is this about Klaus?"

Cuts to the quick.

"What? No!" she splutters out of habit, but the look Damon shoots her now says she's long past the usual denials. "Maybe… sort of," she allows. "How did you..?"

"You're not exactly subtle," he does roll his eyes this time.

She sighs heavily, giving in. "So why? Why do I get sucked in? How could I…"

"…fall for monsters?" Damon finishes quietly.

She'd almost forgotten that she fell for him first.

She frowns, wrapping her arms tight to her ribs. "I had a plan, you know," she stares out the window, feeling the desperation build inside of her – the desperation to recover something forever and irrevocably lost. "Maybe it wasn't the most exciting plan, but it was mine."

"Something tells me you never planned on being a vampire," he notes dryly.

"No, but then I was. And you know, it sucked, but at least I wasn't completely on my own. And I still had a guy – a _good guy_, Damon – who cared about me, and could have been part of that plan. And it slipped away. I just let him slip away…" the pang in her chest for what she had with Matt hasn't been this strong in a long time, but right now, thinking of that look on his face that night, that fear – it's making it harder and harder to breathe.

"So I thought," she plows ahead, "well, new life, new plan. Maybe this time, _this_ guy – it was different, and it couldn't be good, exactly, because it was half angry and dangerous and death – but it was a plan, it was _eternity_. And I swear it worked, it _worked_," she's aware that she's talking faster and faster, would have to be to unlock these words from the deepest corners of herself. "And still," the image of Tyler in her mind's eye changes, and she struggles to slow her breathing, "I never felt _any_ of it, none of it, as strongly as when Klaus just _looked_ at me."

The silence that greets this admission is all-consuming, and as Caroline's heart races a marathon in her chest, it takes a moment to realize that the car is slowing down.

"What? Why are we stopping?" she looks around, mind racing as fast as her unnecessary heartbeat.

"_You_," Damon says pointedly, "need to calm down." He opens the door and is around the back before she can say anything else in protest or otherwise.

He's popping the trunk by the time she follows him out, tossing her a bag of lukewarm blood from the cooler before opening a bottle of bourbon for himself. He downs a third of it in one go.

"Oh thank god," he breaths, closing his eyes and leaning back. "I've wanted to do that since the Kentucky border."

Caroline feels her incredulity building. Anger is a good defense mechanism, she thinks.

She throws the blood bag back at him – he catches it deftly, damn him – and crosses her arms. "I should've known better than to try to talk to you about this," she glares.

"You really want to know what I think?" he asks, passing her the bottle of booze instead.

She snatches the bottle fiercely, but all Caroline can do is nod. Because yes, _yes_, would someone please tell her what they think, what she should do, how she can just _snap out of it_.

"I think darkness can be attractive," he begins slowly, words languid, accepting the bottle back after she's taken a sip. "I think that's human nature, to want to say you tamed the wild thing just by being you. To have that power, it's alluring."

"But it's not right."

Damon shrugs. "Maybe not, but it's rarely so simple as right and wrong."

She takes a longer drink this time. "Well it should be."

Damon chuckles a little at her churlish response. "You're not perfect either, you know," he continues, tilting the bottle towards her with a pointed smirk, "but you're a pretty damn good vampire. And raging psychopaths notwithstanding, you could have many lifetimes ahead of you. You should learn to enjoy them."

"What, by falling for darkness?" her sarcasm is dripping, but it doesn't sound like a joke.

"No," he draws out the syllable, and he's not telling her what she wants to hear. Not telling her that she fell for Stefan, really, and for the goodness in Tyler before him. That Klaus is a charming bastard and that's that. No, Damon is pressing the blood and into her hands, "by not being so afraid of darkness in yourself. Just because it's there, doesn't mean it always outweighs the good. Doesn't have to mean anything you don't want it to, really. But life isn't as black and white as your Barbie Dreamhouse plan, Blondie. And the gray is _fun_."

She looks down at the encased liquid in her hand, glinting darkly in the moonlight, as he steps past her. The music, laced with static from the radio, picks up as he leans in the car, cranks the volume.

"Now _relax_," he smirks again, just a little, walking back her way.

The crimson liquid looks almost black. She nods. Takes a drink.

Damon hops up over the trunk where she's already perched, and takes the rest of the bag for himself as his phone rings. Caroline is surprised when he takes one glance at the screen and ignores the call.

"What if it's important?" she asks, unable to avoid reading Elena's name on the caller ID.

"She'll call back," Damon shrugs, tossing the spent blood and passing Caroline the bourbon instead.

"Thanks," she accepts the bottle, the sincerity in her voice stemming more from his unexpected willingness to avoid the easy out from her company.

Damon nods once, acknowledging. "How much trouble could _Jeremy Gilbert _really be causing them, anyway? Kid'll probably head back to Mystic Falls all on his own when running away isn't everything it was cracked up to be."

"He's not exactly running away," Caroline admonishes, "and he's going through something, Damon."

"Yea, take a number," Damon takes a swig, "he's still gonna wimp out. And it's _always_ running away, even when it's towards something else."

The edge to Damon's voice strikes a chord. "Speaking from personal experience?" she asks carefully.

"Sure," Damon leans forward with a hitch in his shoulder. "I'm probably still running," he adds under his breath, muffling his words behind a long pull of liquor. Caroline tries to search his features at this statement, but he won't meet her gaze.

"I used to run away to my dad's house," Caroline turns back to the road. "Seems kind of silly, now..."

"Funny," Damon suggests, in a tone that isn't funny at all, "I was always running away _from_ my father. Always came home, though," he quirks his jaw. "Everyone comes home eventually, Caroline," he finally looks her in the eye, "never fails."

It's a cold comfort, but a comfort all the same. "How many times has Stefan taken off?" she ventures.

Damon lifts an eyebrow. "A lot," he straightens, "but we're probably on par in that department. Although..." he goes on, posture rapidly settling past whatever solemn vulnerability he had been willing to show. "I think I've spent a lot more time running after my little brother than he has me. Probably shouldn't have established that pattern, huh? Always seems to bite me in the ass."

He doesn't really seem to mean it, and Caroline gets the sense he'd probably never stop chasing after Stefan, even if it killed him. It's not the first time Caroline has wondered what knowing someone that long, being connected to them for centuries, will be like. If she makes it that far.

"Just how early did this start?" she asks, trying to match Damon's lighter tone. And even if she weren't curious, she'd keep talking, if only to avoid being alone with her thoughts.

The corner of Damon's mouth lifts at her question, and if Caroline didn't know better, she'd call the expression wistful. He takes another sip of bourbon. "When Stefan was eight."

Caroline takes the bottle back to hide her smile – it's an endearing thought, an eight-year-old Stefan. "Why'd he run away?"

"Oh, well, Stefan was all pissy he didn't get his own horse for Christmas, so he stole _mine _and ran off in the dead of winter with no supplies," Damon leans forward with a shrug.

"And? What happened?" Caroline presses when Damon doesn't immediately supply further detail. For reasons Caroline won't examine, the suddenly conjured image of Stefan, alone and in pain, rings a little too true.

"Father bullied the whole town into forming a search party," Damon answers, his eyes dark as a storm-churned sea for the briefest of moments. "Looked night and day, but no sign of his little pride and joy."

Caroline isn't sure why she feels so engrossed in long-past events, but she's listening with rapt attention, and telling herself that it's just the alcohol that has her feeling lighter than she has in days.

"So we finally trudge home," Damon continues, "I was stiff and freezing my balls off – but guess who's already there, warm and toasty."

Caroline can't help but grin at Damon's lingering bitterness, even a hundred and fifty plus years later. "Stefan?" she guesses.

"Stefan," Damon confirms. "Just sitting at the kitchen table, happy as a clam, asking why _we_ were late and keeping _him_ from dinner."

Caroline can't help it, the laughter starts bubbling in her chest, and before she knows it, she can't stop. She's practically doubled over when Damon slips the bourbon from her loose fingers. His eyes are narrowed but his lips are twitching, and she knows he got the reaction he intended.

In the back of her mind, she marvels at the extent to which he's managed to distract her from another downward spiral of untenable thoughts.

She's managing to put a lid on her borderline-hysterical glee as Damon swirls the last of the alcohol and takes out his phone. She nods in approval as she sees him text Elena, asking if everything's okay.

"We've got to stop drinking," she sighs, though she's still smiling.

"_Hmmm_," Damon raises an eyebrow, downing the rest of the bottle. "Not yet," he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, hurling the empty bottle a good hundred yards into the trees.

Normally she'd chew him out for littering, but there's something beautiful in the graceful arc of the glass in the moonlight. She watches until she can't see it anymore, gaze ending instead on the dark road stretching out in front of them.

It makes her feel small, and more than a little lost, as the manufactured good humor ebbs out of her with a dispiriting speed. Childhood stories are all well and good, but something in the here and now needs to go right, _has_ to, if she's going to keep her fears and doubts at bay.

"We're going to find him, right?" she finally asks, voice barely cutting through the night.

"Yea," Damon says quietly, "we're gonna find him." He's leaning forward, elbows on knees so she can't see his face, but she believes him.

What will happen after that – to Stefan, to her, to any of them – she doesn't ask. She just leans back against the cool metal and canvas of the car, unable to see the future and afraid to predict it.

But at least the dark road in front of her doesn't look so lonely anymore.


	6. can't make me feel (any less)

**Author's Note: **My thanks again, everyone, for the continued encouragement. We're getting close to the end – probably one more chapter after this, and maybe a short epilogue. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

**6: can't make me feel (any less)**

_You're picking listlessly at the lemon meringue when your phone rings. It clatters, vibrating, across the cheap Formica tabletop while you can do little but stare at the unexpected name, taunting in flashing letters. _

_Klaus. _

_You should be beyond relieved that he left Mystic Falls, not to be heard from for ages. You _were_ relieved. You are. _

_Except... why does he have to reinsert himself now, when everything is so upside-down?_

_"Aren't you gonna answer that, dear?" the kindly waitress asks as she refills your coffee. _

_"Uh huh," you manage to say around the lump in your throat, but you're frozen, fork dangling in stasis over your plate. _

_The others patrons in the diner – all three of them, anyhow – are starting to stare when Damon slides back into the booth. He looks at the phone and back at you, rolling his eyes. "I think 'What do you want?' has always been a good opener for you, Blondie," he offers._

_It is, and he's right, but after the past few days – weeks? months? – you're afraid of what _else_ you might say. "You answer it," you slide the device towards him, not meeting his eyes._

_Damon accepts the call and holds your phone to his ear without saying a word. You can hear Klaus speak your name, enunciating every last syllable like sweet molasses rolling delicately off his tongue. The relief in his voice is palpable._

_"Nope," Damon quips, watching your own reaction carefully, "sorry, guess again."_

_There's a pause, but if Klaus is thrown you can't tell, and soon enough he's launching into the reason for his call. Your eyes widen in unison with Damon's._

_"We'll be there," Damon says with a flat urgency, hanging up. _

_You take a breath in disbelief, or rather, you try to. _

_"C'mon," Damon throws some cash on the table, standing expectantly. After a moment, he holds his hand out to help you up. You shake yourself, and take it._

* * *

"I can't go in there."

Damon stops outside the alley door, turns back to Caroline.

"What are you talking about? This is why we're here," he says incredulously. "I locate, you cajole, remember?"

She could retort that taking a call from Klaus reporting Stefan's unanticipated appearance in one of his seedier New Orleans bars is hardly an accomplishment, but this just reinforces that going through that door means seeing Klaus and Stefan both.

She's not prepared for that. Realized it the moment they got back on the road, if she's being honest. And it's surprising, since all she's wanted _– with every last fibre of her being, truly – _was to find Stefan and go _home_. Did it not occur to her that fulfilling her deepest wish would also mean coming face-to-face with the living, breathing reminder of her failure? Her twisted-up heartbreak?

And then _Klaus_, on top of it? Klaus, who understands her better than he should, who's been right about far more things than she cares to admit?

No, she's not prepared for that at all.

She's been searching for the right time to say so. This isn't it, she knows, but it's her last chance and she's here and they're _here_ and—

"_I thought he was Stefan_," she hisses, aware she's said this before.

Damon heaves a put-upon sigh, but takes both of her shoulders with remarkable restraint and bends to look her dead in the eye. "Why do you think you're here?" he raises an eyebrow. "I know you care about my brother. You think you messed up? You want to make it right? Help me get him back."

Oddly, it's the apprehension rather than the steel in those turbulent blue eyes that makes Caroline nod in agreement.

Klaus opens the door at Damon's second knock, the sound reverberating in and around the otherwise eerie silence of early morning. The Original directs Damon behind him but never takes his eyes off of Caroline's own. And where she's spent the better part of a week trying to glean the slightest hints into Damon's state of mind, Klaus makes no such effort to hide the complicated mixture of joy, doubt, and concern flitting across his features.

Caroline wants to say something, a 'thank you,' at least, for keeping Stefan here. But the words don't come. And besides, Stefan _is_ here, and his presence draws her attention like a moth to flame.

He's curled up in the corner of this dingy storeroom, forehead leaning against the wall, knees drawn tightly to his chest. The light is dim at best, and Damon blocks what little remains as he crouches wordlessly in front of his baby brother. Doesn't stop her from seeing the tear tracks, though, streaking down from hollow, red-rimmed eyes.

The sight arrests her vision, her breath, possibly her very being.

She can't hear anything that's said past the sudden roaring in her ears, but once Damon gets Stefan to look at him, she's not sure their conversation even requires words. Caroline is distantly aware she's supposed to be helping with this part, but she finds herself unable to move until Klaus' hand at the small of her back prods her forward.

She cautiously kneels down at Damon's side, and when Stefan turns to her, she wonders how she ever confused him for Silas.

How she _ever_.

She reaches for Stefan's hand, trying her best at a reassuring smile. As he accepts her fingers within his own, a deeply rooted feeling it may take her years to identify finally clicks into place.

"I'll just leave you three to it, shall I?" Klaus says quietly from behind them. Caroline turns, offers him a small smile as he leaves with an understanding nod – maybe it should be more, but this isn't about her and her carousel of uncertainty. She knows what she needs to do, what she _can_ do.

Because this in front of her, this is _broken_. And even if she did know how to let people go under the best of circumstances, she certainly isn't letting go now. And Damon – he can't abandon Stefan either, has dragged her hundreds of miles in service of his sense of responsibility, or whatever it is.

So yea, she knows where she's supposed to be, and it's right here.

"How do we make it better?" she asks softly.

Stefan turns away from her, the shadows accentuating the dark circles, the gaunt hollows of his cheeks. "Make the voices stop," he speaks after a moment, barely above a whisper.

Caroline feels the shudder to her core, but keeps her hands steady – possibly for the first time in days. "Have you eaten?" she suggests, deciding to start smaller.

He shakes his head, still refusing to look at either of them. "Not much."

"You need to eat," she states the obvious, mother-henning a familiar strong suit.

"Afraid to," Stefan mumbles.

Caroline's heart breaks a little bit, but she takes a deep breath. "Stefan," she begins firmly, with more conviction than she's felt since this whole mess began, "you are going to get better. You are going to come home and we are going to get past this."

"Don't want to go back," he holds himself tighter. "Was gonna leave… live my life."

Damon rocks back slightly on his heels at this, but remains quiet.

"If that's what you want... we can talk about it later," she glances at Damon, but his expression is impassive. "But you've got to let us help you first, okay? Step by step. You're going to be just fine, you'll see."

Stefan lets out a pained sound of disbelief at the idea, pulls his hand away from hers to tuck back into himself.

Caroline frowns, looking back at Damon. "_Say something_," she mutters, elbowing him in the ribs.

She's taken aback when he doesn't even glare at her, just continues watching his brother with the most unreadable expression she's ever seen, too many emotions and yet none at all coloring every line of his face.

The silence must stretch on for almost ten minutes before Damon levers himself down on the floor, stretching his legs perpendicular to Stefan and leaning his head back against the wall.

He does finally start talking, although, for the life of her, Caroline doesn't know about what. Old stories, mostly _– _unremarkable tales that have little frame of reference for her, unless she recognizes a name or a place. But even then, he's obviously thinking of a time long before she was even born.

She doesn't really see the point until she notices Stefan's breathing start to even out. She smiles when one particularly funny remembrance elicits the smallest of weak chuckles, but she doesn't really relax until he reaches out blindly for her hand and squeezes her fingers tight.

Damon catches her eye not long after this gesture, seeming to run out of things to say. Caroline nods, closing her free hand over Stefan's.

She's about to suggest that step one, they get up off this hard, cold floor, but Stefan speaks before she has the chance. "What about Silas?" he asks quietly, looking her in the eye with a tentative courage he'd obviously been building towards with all his energy.

"He's gone, brother," Damon answers in a low voice. "No surprises, this time."

Stefan fills his lungs deeply at this, letting out an unsteady breath.

"No matter what you want to do," Caroline leans forward, startled at how different – how _genuine_ – this closeness feels compared to the moments she'd shared with the man who'd looked so much like him. "No matter what," she repeats, "I'm not going anywhere. _We're_ not going anywhere."

She watches Stefan take this in, follows his gaze as he looks back towards Damon. His brother simply nods his agreement.

"You just have to try to stay with me," Caroline continues, feeling the grit in her voice. "Keep fighting for yourself, and we'll do the rest."

Stefan doesn't look as though he has much confidence, but Caroline has more than enough for both of them, this time, even if she still wishes she could have such belief in herself. "Okay?" she repeats, hopefully.

Stefan tilts his head, almost imperceptibly. "I… I will, I just—" he closes his eyes with another shaky breath, opens them with the smallest shred of grim determination. "Just keep talking, alright?"

"I can do that," she grins, settling more comfortably in the damp storeroom. She'll stay here for days, if she has to, if it means getting him better. She looks to Damon, but he places his hands behind his head, nodding back encouragingly. "So," she begins, turning back to Stefan, a long-absent buoyancy filling her chest, "I hear you stole a horse…"


	7. reason enough to try

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the delaying posting this, and thanks for sticking with this story. I'm really grateful for all of your comments and support. Just a little epilogue to follow this chapter... Enjoy!

* * *

**7: reason enough to try**

_You watch the scenery fly by, a kaleidoscope of green and brown and blue that probably means you're going too fast. But you don't really care._

_You're going home._

_You're _all_ going home._

_No idea for how long, but maybe it doesn't matter. It's forward. It's progress. It isn't enough, but it settles you for the moment. Because you kept talking, just like you promised. Replaced the voices that haunted him with the sound of your own. Still, you wish you could do more._

_And home is a good place to start._

_You absently run your fingers through Stefan's hair, his head resting in your lap as he sleeps fitfully through first Mississippi, then Tennessee. It feels right, in some new way you hadn't planned for. _

_That feeling reassures you against your doubt, knowing that your first instinct was for Stefan, not some warped facsimile of him. And you knew it within moments of being with him – the real him – again. No matter what transpired in between, it's the man curled up in this backseat with you that holds you fast._

_You catch Damon watching in the rearview mirror, relief and amusement and a world-weary mind ten steps ahead of your own playing beneath the surface of his features. _

_"Eyes on the road, mister," you whisper, a small smile._

_"Yes ma'am," though his attention lingers a moment longer before settling on the pavement and easing into his trademark smirk._

_He keeps driving too fast. _

_You keep watch, and wonder. _

* * *

Caroline closes the door to Stefan's room with a heavy sigh, tinged with longing. As much as she would have liked to curl up in that bed next to him, she knows that isn't what he needs. Knows it builds on something he hasn't experienced.

Maybe one day he will. But for now, she can't be that selfish.

She quietly slips downstairs, drained and suddenly yearning for her own room, for a cup of her mom's favorite tea and sleep.

She opens the front door just as Damon ends a call, slipping his phone into a pocket with a hundred yard stare. He looks up at Caroline's appearance, shifting his features to neutral.

She really wishes he would stop doing that.

"Headed home?" he raises an eyebrow from his vantage point, sitting on the front stoop.

"Just for a few hours," Caroline answers tiredly.

"Need a ride?" he offers, digging out his keys. The suggestion is so genuine and unvarnished, Caroline thinks he must be more exhausted than she is.

"It's okay," she stops his motion, "I could use the run…" And she may be drained but it's true – for the time to herself, if nothing else.

Damon nods, seeming to understand. Caroline takes a few steps, intending to leave him to his own thoughts in kind, but something gives her pause.

"How's Elena?" she ventures, turning back and taking a guess at who he was talking to before she came outside.

"Fine," he shrugs. "Tired. Frustrated, mostly."

"Jeremy still not coming around?" Caroline frowns.

"Kid is stubborn as a mule," Damon confirms with a moue of distaste.

"You can go to her, if you want," Caroline dips an ankle uncertainly, "I can take care of Stefan for awhile."

Damon looks up at her again, and for once his expression isn't so guarded. "I know you can," he says at last, ever so quietly. The fact that he _needs_ _to_ goes unspoken, as he returns his gaze down the shaded drive.

"But... I'm sure Elena understands if you can't leave right away..?" Caroline's forehead knits as she drops onto the step, intentions for home momentarily forgotten.

"Yea," he mutters.

Caroline's arms cross with a gentle frown at his monosyllabic reply. "You haven't told her anything about it, have you?"

His lack of response is answer enough.

Caroline sighs heavily. "You have to talk to her, Damon."

"We talk," Damon gestures at his pocket and the cell phone within, "obviously."

Caroline rolls her eyes, leaning back against the portico post. "She's worried about you," she explains what seems patently obvious, "don't make her guess what you're thinking."

"What I'm _thinking_?" Damon scoffs, eyes swiftly and fiercely meeting hers across the entryway, an expression she used to find more intimidating. "I'm thinking I couldn't just leave well enough alone, and look where it got us."

"You mean leave Elena alone?" Caroline raises an eyebrow.

Damon's jaw locks but he looks away. It's enough of a confirmation for Caroline to continue, belatedly beginning to understand just how long Damon must have watched Elena with his brother, suppressing feelings of his own, albeit sometimes with limited success. It's something that Stefan evidently couldn't do – Caroline isn't sure she could do it herself.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this," she begins, looking at the sky, "but you deserve to be happy. Or at least," she adds, when he shoots her an expression of disbelief, "you don't deserve to be miserable. Stefan would say the same."

Damon snorts, standing. "I think I need a drink to have this conversation," he moves to enter the Boarding House.

"Damon, wait," Caroline grabs his wrist, meets his gaze when he looks down at her with barely contained intensity. "What happened to Stefan isn't your fault."

Damon pulls his arm out of her grip easily. "Forget it, Caroline," he shakes his head. "I don't expect you to make me feel better."

"I'm not trying to make you feel better," Caroline snaps, exasperated, "I'm just trying to get you to hear me – hear the _truth_."

"The truth about how my brother spent _months_ drowning in a safe because I let him go off alone – made him want to leave in the first place?" Damon bites back. "Or maybe the truth about how _I_ spent those months? Shacking up with his ex-girlfriend, pretending like it was normal that he was just_ fine_ with it."

"Didn't you just spend the last week convincing me that Silas played us?" Caroline is standing now, hands on her hips. "He would've gotten to Stefan no matter what you did or didn't do. So stop blaming yourself for something you had no control over, and start focusing on what's really bothering you."

Damon stares heatedly at her for a moment, before he blinks abruptly. "You seem better," he crosses his arms with a small smirk.

Caroline gapes slightly, taken off-guard. "Yea, well," she admits, fire rushing out of her as she slumps back down to the steps, "maybe I just needed someone else to focus on."

"Not talking about me, I hope," Damon glances sidelong as he joins her back on the stoop, still with that smallest hint of a grin to let her know he's joking. He knows full well who she's been focused on.

"Don't flatter yourself," she purses her lips, "and don't change the subject."

"But it's so much more fun," he snarks, sighing when she levels a no-nonsense glare. "Fine," Damon rests his elbows on his knees, posture shifting slightly, truly revealing his own weariness for the first time. "Elena would never make me choose between her and my brother," his eyes slip closed a moment too long, turning further away. "And apparently Stefan would rather leave than face it. So _I_ have to make the decision."

"Damon…" Caroline begins sadly, "this isn't about choosing between two people you love. It should never be about that."

"Life isn't about 'shoulds,' Caroline," Damon stares into the fading sunlight.

"I don't believe that," Caroline responds defiantly. And she may be the last person expected to talk him into this, but she doesn't find herself as surprised as she might have been. Not after what she's seen in him the last few days – last few months, even.

Not after what she's seen in herself, either. If she can be in the same room as Klaus after all he's done – if she can live with her own mistakes… she can't pass judgment so harshly anymore.

Don't be afraid of the darkness, right?

"I know you feel responsible for Stefan," Caroline ventures when Damon remains quiet. "He's your little brother – that's not a bad thing. But he wouldn't want to think he was costing you a chance at happiness any more than you want to interfere with his."

"Doesn't exactly provide an easy solution though, does it?" and even if he won't look at her, Caroline can tell he really does want an answer.

"I don't know," she admits. "But you don't have to figure out how to live through the next century and a half today, you just have to get through tomorrow."

"One day at a time, huh? Are you, Caroline Forbes, advocating _not _having a plan?" Damon glances back at her, and she offers a hesitant smile in return. He chuckles lightly, looking down at his boots. "Where's all this magnanimous wisdom coming from, Blondie?" he lifts his brow, fading sunlight reflecting in his eyes.

Her smile widens generously. "I guess I've gotten some good advice, lately."

"_Hmmm…_" Damon turns back to the drive, contemplative.

Caroline follows his gaze, lost in thought herself. But they aren't as oppressive, as all-consuming as they have been. She thinks back to Damon's observation, and wonders if she'll ever be able to pull herself together without the immediate motivation of someone she cares about in need. Wonders what will happen when it's her who needs taking care of.

Then again, maybe that's what Damon has been doing these last few days, in his own way.

"C'mon," she pushes up, "I don't feel like running anymore. Still offering a ride?"

Damon looks up at her for a beat, finally pulling himself to standing. "Sure we should leave the nutcase unattended?" he asks, glancing back to the house with a well-worn smirk as he walks to his car. "Wouldn't want to have to go back on the road so soon."

Caroline smiles, thinking of the man she'd left upstairs in his room, grateful for a moment where she doesn't have to worry about anything but matching smirk with sarcasm. "I don't know," she opens the door, "it wasn't so bad, in the end."


	8. epilogue: ever always known

**Author's Note: **Well, kids, we've finally reached the end and I'm slipping it in right under the wire of the new season. I hope you've enjoyed this, and thanks again for your feedback – please do leave me a final word or two. And Karen, this one's for you, lady.

* * *

**epilogue: ever always known **

_You watch him from the doorway for a moment, reassuring yourself that he's here, he's back and he's okay. You're okay. _

_"You don't have to be so far away," he says quietly, though he keeps his back to you, arms folded protectively across his chest. _

_Your smile is tinged with sadness as you make your way to the ample windowsill in front of him, obscuring his view of the moonlight-crested waves below. They crash ceaselessly against the rocky ocean shore, unyielding but not unchanged._

_"Hi," he whispers, a ghost of a smile flitting across his face. His eyes still look hollow, but not as bad as the last time. Or the time before that..._

_"Hi," you answer belatedly, reaching to run your fingers through the hair at his temple, strands that have never – _will_ never go gray, no matter how many years you watch them. _

_He touches his hand to your own, tentatively resting there a moment before bringing your fingers down between his palms. He clutches them tight to his chest as he nestles closer between your knees. "I'm sorry I keep doing this to you," he speaks solemnly, unable to hold your gaze. _

_"Stefan..." you breathe, but what can you say? You wish he didn't fall over the edge as often as he does, of course you do. But for his sake, not your own. "You came back to me, nothing else matters."_

_He breathes deeply, touching his forehead against your own. "You're too good to me," he murmurs, seeking forgiveness he's convinced himself he doesn't deserve. _

_You lean forward, resting your chin on his shoulder, refusing to let him see how much he scared you, how worried you were that this would be the time he didn't come back. That this time he might be beyond your help. No, all he'll know is that you mean it when you tilt your lips to his ear and whisper, "you're worth it."_

* * *

Caroline steps onto the wraparound porch, letting the salt air sink heavily into her lungs, still too keyed up to sleep. It's always this way when Stefan finally comes home, when the effects of daily worry aren't so easy to brush off, even when their source is removed.

She had thought she was the only one still up at this late hour, but the soft glow spilling out of the kitchen window proves she was wrong.

She shakes her tired, adrenaline-fueled mind and walks the length of the wind-whipped cottage. She's surprised to find Damon and Elena sitting expectantly at the rough-hewn dining table, a small, overly-lit cake displayed proudly between them. Elena's smile could light the room all on it's own, and she rushes forward, arms outstretched to envelop Caroline in a massive hug.

Caroline responds reflexively, still surprised. "What..?" she tries to form a question, looking from Elena to Damon to the cake, and back again.

"You didn't think we'd let the day pass without celebrating your 76th, did you?" Elena keeps smiling that megawatt smile, and only a friend as old as Caroline could see that it's frayed at the edges, if no less genuine.

Caroline, for her part, had nearly lost track of the date, what with everything else on her mind.

Yet even Damon has a little grin in his eyes. "Happy birthday, Blondie," he smirks, slides the cake towards her.

Caroline feels the smile stretching her own features of its own accord and leans down, closes her eyes as the modest wave of heat brushes her cheeks. She blows out the candles in half a heartbeat, no question what she'll wish for.

_Please let Stefan wake up feeling more like himself. Please keep his demons at bay. Please keep him _here_, with me._

Elena clasps her hands together as Damon turns on the dim light over the sink. "Here," Elena slides Caroline a knife, "dig in. I have been _dying_ for a slice of this all day."

They each take a generous serving, and Caroline has to struggle not to lick the icing from her plate when she's done. She and Elena fall into an easy rhythm, allowing themselves to be temporarily unburdened by recent stresses. They plan for Matt's impending visit, when he'll be bringing his grandkids up from Boston. Damon grumbles that the 'rugrats' will hang off of him like spare limbs, but Caroline thinks even he's looking forward to it – at least a little bit. And when Damon clears the dishes, Elena conspiratorially winks and whispers that Caroline will find her birthday present in her suitcase later. She's pretty sure it's the much too extravagant dress she was admiring in Milan last month.

It all feels blessedly normal, and distracts her from the anxiety and nervous energy she's been living off of these past few days while they searched for Stefan, brought him back home – back to himself.

They've wandered out to the craggy dunes, admiring the absolute blackness of the water from a safe distance for an hour before Elena finally stifles a yawn. She smiles again, leaning into Damon as she squeezes his fingers.

"I guess I should turn in," she stands, "been a long week."

Caroline nods in agreement, even as she's unable to let the spell break just yet, to go back to shouldered responsibility and a few more uncertain nights while she waits, guides Stefan back to whole as best she can, tries to help him put the past where it belongs.

"Right behind you," Damon is saying quietly, sharing a moment of understanding with Elena that's just for her. The brunette brushes delicate fingertips along his hairline and a shorthand passes between them that's hard to teach. Caroline has come to admire it, over the years.

"Happy birthday, Care," Elena says once more before heading back for the house.

Caroline watches her go for a moment, before turning back to the water and its unknowable depths. The water laps at the shore more gently now, ebbing away like so many forgotten goodbyes.

She wonders, in these quiet moments after the storm, if she wasted too much time finding her way back to Stefan all those decades ago, letting the memory of Silas and that lost summer haunt them both for far too long. Because when Stefan touches her and her heart fills – even when it's also breaking for him, as it is now – part of her knows she wants those extra years, days, hours.

So she's not wasting her chances now, no matter how hard it gets. But it _is_ hard, and it hurts sometimes, knowing she can't fix everything, can't make it better, can't erase all of their mistakes.

She can keep coming back here, though, where the water washes everything anew, reminds her to start with tomorrow, and the next day will follow.

"One more present for you," Damon speaks into the easy silence after awhile, reaching into an inner pocket and producing a delicate silver flask. Caroline takes it as he leans forward, forearms propped against his knees.

"It's beautiful," Caroline breathes. And it is, intricately engraved with a looping, natural pattern. "Whose crest is this?" her brow furrows as she traces the unfamiliar lines at the center.

"Orsini," a corner of Damon's mouth lifts, "my mother's family name. _That_ belonged to Stefan's and my grandfather."

Caroline touches the polished surface reverently. "Why are you giving this to _me_?" she can't help but ask.

Damon shrugs. "Found it last time we were in Mystic Falls. Was going to give it to Stefan, but…" he trails off, looking back at her. "I think you should have it. Mother would have liked that – she didn't take any crap from people, either."

"Thank you," Caroline's smile is lopsided, weighted by how rare it is for Damon or Stefan to mention their family.

Damon just nods succinctly. "I put the good stuff in there, too," the usual smirk returns to his features, "so don't say I never gave you nothin'."

Caroline chuckles softly, tucking the heirloom between her knees. She lets the sound of the ocean, the rustle of the wind lull her into thoughtfulness again.

"Thank you for coming – for being here," she says after a moment, knowing he'll understand what she means.

"What, and let you deal with the Mad Hatter all on your own?" he responds flippantly.

"I'm serious, Damon," she rolls her eyes.

"So am I," he says without missing a beat, and she doesn't have to look at him to know that he's telling the truth. And the thing of it is, he's _never_ let her do this all on her own.

She's spent a lifetime getting stronger, learning to live in the gray, figuring out how to keep taking care of the people she loves without otherwise losing herself. She fell up and in and out of all the wrong things until she finally circled back to the right one, the forever one it was always supposed to be. And Damon Salvatore, in some quiet way, made sure she never faced any of it without someone at her back. Him, or Stefan – or Elena or her mother or Matt – anyone, everyone – never too far away, if she needed them.

And sometimes, these times, she needs them.

She smiles a little to herself, recognition dawning in the darkness.

"What pushed him over the edge, this time?" Damon finally asks, having had no time to stop and evaluate before now, before it's over and they can think again.

Caroline sighs, unsure, that tendril of fear and doubt worming its way back to the pit of her stomach. She never completely understands what triggers Stefan's setbacks, what drops him dramatically over the cliff – or instead wears down his defenses far enough that he can't keep up. "That old journal Klaus sent, maybe… or being in Chicago again, I don't know," she voices her uncertainty. "And I mean," she worries a nail between her teeth, "shouldn't I _know_?"

Damon doesn't say anything right away, and it encourages Caroline to keep going. "I love him," she bites her lip now, "and I don't know how to stop this from happening."

She's spent so many years thinking loving someone meant finishing their sentences, meant knowing every last secret in their heart, knowing them better than they know themselves. She can't reconcile not knowing _this_.

"You might not be able to stop it," Damon says honestly. "Though I know you won't stop trying… And that's good enough."

Caroline stares for a moment, wondering if she can learn to let anything less than complete success be good enough.

The idea makes her feel tired, weary to her bones. So she mirrors Damon's posture with her legs pulled up to her chest, leans her head against his shoulder and watches the tide come in again.

"Is he ever going to be okay?" she speaks at last, barely loud enough to hear.

"Completely?" she can already hear the skepticism in his voice.

"Yea," she answers anyway.

He pauses. "Maybe," he allows.

"You're not counting on it," a wave crashes somewhere below them.

Damon is quiet for a long moment. "I count on other things," he finally answers as another wave follows the last.

A slow smile stretches Caroline's face, understanding. "Then so will I," she breathes, "so will I."

She'll count on another wave coming ashore, and another after that. She'll count on darkness and light, on surprise birthday cakes, and on waking up next to Stefan every morning that she's able. And she'll never count on them alone.


End file.
